Dreaming the soul's path: interview with Robert Moss for New Life Journal (Part 2).

Our interview with Robert Moss, author of Conscious Dreaming, Dreamgates, Dreaming True, Dreamways of the Iroquois, and The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, continues. (See Live, Laugh & Learn in this issue for info on his visit to our area). The first part of this interview can be found in the April 2006 issue of New Life Journal or online at newlifejournal.com

With the amount of personal growth books flooding the market, there seems to be a growing interest in living a more authentic, soul driven life. How can dreams help in this pursuit?

Through dreaming, we can remember our sacred purpose, and we can reclaim aspects of soul that have gone missing. Soul-loss, in shamanic understanding, is a primary source of illness, depression, and mental confusion. We lose vital soul energy through pain and trauma and heartbreak, through wrenching life choices, and by giving up on our big dreams and ceasing to live the soul's purpose. When we lose the energy of soul, the magic goes out of life. We are often fatigued for no apparent reason, we can't experience joy or love, and there is a gaping hole in us that we try to fill with addictive behaviors. Soul-loss can put us in the procession of the walking dead, playing the roles that other people cast us for, no longer knowing who we are or why we are in this world.

The Iroquois say that if we have lost our dreams, we have lost our souls. But when we reopen to our dreams, they can show us where our soul energy has gone, and how to bring it back into the body where it belongs. When we dream, again and again, of the old place, or see a young child who turns out to be a separated aspect of ourselves, these dreams may be invitations to reach into a certain space and reclaim energy and identity that may have been missing for decades.

In Dreamways of the Iroquois, you write about spontaneously dreaming with and about the First Peoples of this country. How does dreaming help us to deepen our relationship with the land and our ancestors?

Our ancestors--going all the way back through the bloodlines, perhaps--and the ancestors of the land where we live often appear in spontaneous sleep dreams. Sometimes they come looking for us. As dream journeyers, we may choose to go looking for them.

When I started dreaming in Mohawk and studying shamanism, some of my fierce Scottish ancestors started walking through my dreams, basically saying, "Look here laddie, we know a few things too. Don't forget to talk to us." These dreams invited both a continuing dialogue (through dream reentry and conscious dreaming) and expeditions and excavations in ordinary reality, which led me (for example) to Dumfriesshire on the Western Borders, the landscape of my father's people, and into an indelible encounter with a scottiSh Merlin.

When we have mastered the arts of dream travel and shared dreaming, we can embark on conscious journeys to encounter ancestral wisdom-keepers and effect what might be called cultural soul retrieval. I had a rich and moving experience of this in Lithuania, a country that has been ravaged and mauled by stronger neighbors for centuries, but where the old Goddess-centered ways are still just under the surface. I describe in The Dreamer's Book of the Dead how I led 45 Lithuanians on a series of group journeys into the realm of ancient priestesses of Zemyna (the Earth Mother of Lithuania). We were able to bring back words and symbols and rituals of healing.

From your experience, is there a way our personal dreaming can help to heal the some the current social, political, and environmental challenges that we are facing in the world today?

Dreaming takes us to a spiritual depth of understanding of our contemporary challenges. It shows us the consequences of present actions and policies, on every scale from individual to planetary. Through dreaming, we can enter the mindset and circumstances of people who are profoundly different, and see through their eyes. This can give us the ability to move beyond entrenched prejudice and obsessions about enemies.

My hope is that by sharing the techniques of Active Dreaming more widely, we can weave webs of peace and healing for our world. The need is very urgent. I think now of the "dream webs" of the Andaman Islanders--who got out of the way of the recent Asian Tsunami because their dreams and their intimate connection with the animals and the Earth told them it was coming--who stage community "dream-ins" to solve community problems. They picture themselves weaving a dream web across which their dream scouts can move rapidly to gather and bring back information vital to the common interests of the group.

If you could narrow it down, what is the single most important gift dreaming has given you?

I learned from a dream guide in my childhood that the most important knowledge comes to us through anamnesis, which means "remembering" the knowledge that belonged to us, on the level of soul and spirit, before we came into this world. Dreaming is the best way I know to practice soul remembering. We live differently when we remember that our lives have a purpose, one we consciously accepted before we came here, and that the ups and downs of our present lives are part of a bigger story.

Jennifer Hinton, M.A. is a European-trained shamanic practitioner. She has taught shamanism and dreamwork throughout the U.S. and Europe. You can contact her at Practice for Shamanism and Ritual at 828-669-0180 or [e-mail].